A Special Holiday Episode with Brooke Shields

Published Dec 18, 2023, 8:01 AM

Isaac Mizrahi sits down with actor, model, author and entrepreneur, Brooke Shields to talk about what she does for the holidays, how she handles stage fright, the hilarious thing she did when a fan tried to take her picture and so much more. Plus, you’ll hear some fun and funny highlights from Isaac’s holiday show at Café Carlyle.

Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok, Isaac @imisaacmizrahi on Instagram and TikTok and Brooke Shields @brookeshields.

(Recorded on November 13, 2023)

Today we're doing something a little different on Hello Isaac. We've got a special holiday episode for you. It features my friend Brookshields, who I recently saw at Cafe Carlisle, where you know, I've been performing for the past like I don't know, eight years or something or nine years. Every winter I do like a two week residency there the beginning of the year, and just a few weeks ago we did two holiday shows that were really really fun in Cafe Carlisle. Here's a little taste.

Happy Holidays, ladies and gentlemen.

It's the holidays.

The holiday's here at Cafe Carlisle, Darling, the House of Ms Rahie. Anyway, I just thought it would be really fun to talk to Rook about her experience at Cafe Carlisle and share a few clips from my show, my holiday show, and discuss the holidays, discuss live performing, and just get a little bit reacquainted with brook Shields. So come on, let's get started, brook Shields. Come on, Hello, Hi Gorge. How are you you look so pretty today? Your skin looks good, I'm glad to say, and your eyes look very good.

Thank you.

You look very clear today, Darling.

We know each other for a minute, just about a second, for just about a second, a few minutes, I can I recall yeah, me, mess please please. Aside from the fact that I've been, you know, like a big fan of yours and watching you since you're like a little girl, I met you for real in my studio. I think it was like in nineteen eighty six or seven or something like that. You came in with Jade Hopson Charnin.

Remember Jade, Jada was.

Like the most beautiful woman in the world and person in the world, Like Jade is a doll. But anyway, she worked at Vogue and she was doing a story with you as the model, and I think they were taking you to Japan or something with Dennis Peele and they were using all my clothes. Yeah, that's my memory of it.

Dennis Peele.

I think it was it Dennis Peel, or it might have been you know what. It was one of those times where they brought the model, they picked a designer, and you went and worked fourteen sixteen hour days for the magazine.

Right right, and you sat on a plane for a minute too. That's the other thing I can't imagine in those days, did you even think about those kinds of bookings. Did you even think, like, am I going to Japan? It was either Japan or it was like Fresno or something. It was like a trip. It was a trip with a photographer.

Either Japan or Fresno. That's usually the way it went. Those are usually your choices. I mean, I worked with Dennis Peele. Dennis feel's like the only photographer ever to make me cry, which was very interesting. But I don't know if we were working in Europe or if we were working in Asia. But you know, what didn't occur to me is that you'd have to get off the plane and go.

Straight to work.

AI didn't exactly, you know, and at that age, you didn't worry about puffy eyes.

You know.

Now, I hope my eyes are puffy because I look younger, because it fills out the wrinkles. But no way I can get right off the plane anymore and go right to work.

It's the truth.

And I guess maybe that's one reason that people only hire like young models and i'm young actors because they actually don't get puffy and they can work for a very very long amount of time.

They also don't know much better.

I mean, I right, Also, God, I will say, though it that was an era, and it was the era of work ethic, which I do not see anymore.

No me either not.

I mean, my daughter is really venturing into all of it, and she's you know, with IMG, and she's working for Tommy, he'll figure and all of this stuff. And she'll come home and she'll say, Mom.

I didn't like what I was wearing, or you just took so long.

And I'm like, honey, you don't get an opinion now, may really cares read her?

I'm sorry, Wow, this is amazing.

God.

You know what, here's the thing about you, Like I usually do a big history about the people that I interview, but in your case, your history is our history. We all remember, at least if you're my age, or slightly younger than me, or even much younger than me, everybody watched you grow up, and we know kind of exactly what happened to you.

Right.

Well, what's weird now, too, is that I'll go do these speaking engagements and someone will send a bio and they read the bio and I'll finally said, finally said, please don't read the bio. Don't read the bio. It doesn't matter. You could say something like you all know her for one reason or another. Start with that, I don't feel I don't need.

To read her. Are all Ohio?

And because now kids are coming up to me because of Jane the Virgin or Hannah Montana's dead mother, and all these shows are coming back or friends now you know, coming back. So all these things are coming back into the zeitgeist again. And then so the kids are getting younger and their grandparents still aren't recognizing me getting older.

Yeah, exactly, Well, darling, I want to talk a lot about you as a live performer. But first of all, let's talk about holidays. Let's talk about your birthday. Do you like your birthday?

I love my birthday?

Who are you brooksh.

I love my birthday because are you crazy?

I survived it alone. I survived another year. They didn't get me, they didn't win. And then you hopefully get like celebrated in some way, but you kind of have to ask for it. By the way, there's something you do because people have insecurities about It's funny. My friends will have a birth and maybe it's just a dinner and they'll say, you know, no presence, no presents, Right, I do this thing that they hate. They get so mad at me, I say, especially if it's not too big a room. Please, can everyone just tell us one thing that you love the best about this person? And inevitably they end up like crying and then going I'm so mad at you, but thank you and yeah, you have to read the room. But it's a time for people to be able to be celebrated for who they are to the people that are personal in your life.

Well, I have to tell you, darling, I think what you're saying works if people actually know you, you know, right, it's like sex or something.

You have to ask for it.

If you really really are in the mood and you want to be celebrated that day, have to say, could you please celebrate me?

Right?

I mean, that's just one way of doing a birthday. You know.

I've now started to really not like a big party at all and just want a great weekend with girlfriends are you know, just my family and their best friends. Like you know, it's gotten definitely much smaller. I mean, I was just thinking the other day about my sixtieth which is two years, a little under two years, and I was literally thinking.

Like, in two years, it's gonna happen.

Well, yeah, I'm fifty eight, so I hate you.

I hate you. I hate you.

How are you younger than me? I could kill you, Brooke Shields, I could literally kill you. What are you going to do on your sixtieth birthday?

I don't know.

I was thinking about it and I thought, you know what, I have a small group of people together and go somewhere, or just have dinner with people that you love around like simple.

So you like your birthday? What other holidays do you like? What other holidays do you even think about? Do you think about Christmas?

I think about Christmas because again, when you have kids, you do it all for them, and they have certain traditions that they really like doing. But you know, whereas when I was a kid, my mother would wait until Christmas to get our tree because that's when all.

The trees were cheaper.

And I thought that was the tradition that you decorated the tree on Christmas Eve. And meanwhile, my younger daughter is like, Mom, we are not waiting. We are doing it right after Thanksgiving. I was like, but then it's going to get all.

Dry and it's a fire hazard.

And she said, I need a Christmas tree and so you know, that's changed over the years, but I do love decorating our tree. This year, I think we're going to make something like, oh, candy pecans or like I want to do something that I can make and put in jars. Like that's the kind of stuff that I like doing with my with my kids in the kitchen. And now we have a dog, so we have a new puppy, so that's you know. And then we always go away somewhere for New Year's That's been a tradition and we don't really ever know exactly where and just you know, it could be just out east, it could be somewhere warm. There have been years we've gone exotic places like af in India and Ireland. Oh that is like our freest period of time because both kids aren't in school and I like taking the family, my kids and my husband away from anything that we know, so that if you stay in the city, it's all about their parties and it's all about their friends. And whereas if we go somewhere where we've never been, we have to stay together as a little unit.

And I like to make that happen.

And Darling, you don't have like anxiety around travel because I, like you and my youth, I was always on a plane. I was always going somewhere. It was always late getting somewhere. There was always delays, and I went right off the plane into the meetings and into the factories and into the show or whatever. And so I developed like a big anxiety about airports, about delays, about I don't know what happens to me in airports, not so with you, or do you fly privately or something?

Now, God no, God no, I mean honestly, if there was one thing that I could just do and have it not be crazy it cost me anything, that would be the way I would want to like that would be in my Disney world.

Yes, no, the entire world would probably answer with that question.

Yeah.

I never had a fear of flying, and I always flew with my mother and we always just figured it out. The minute I had kids, I started becoming terrified of flying. And I realized very quickly that it was going to hinder my job, because, especially during this past strike, all I did was fly places, and I had to do it because it was the only way that I could make any money. It was the only way I can of course, and it was all a hustle again, and I just stopped letting my mind spin out of control because I'm not with my family. I call my husband and I say, promise me, the plane's going to be okay. And I need him to say that to me because I've become completely new and I don't even like let go and let god.

There's nothing to do about that.

I have like tequila, and I try to watch a movie and try to escape or sleep because if anything happens while I'm asleep, least I might.

Not know about it.

Right well, darling, I mean, if something happens, they're going to wake you up.

You're gonna wake up.

Thing is for me, the anxiety that I'm talking about is not so much about the flight.

What is it?

Then?

It's about being in an airport and letting go of the controls or what you think the controls you have of your life. It's like being in a hospital or something where you just have to let yourself, you give yourself over. You just become nothing more than like a seat number. And they don't want to hear about it, like there are so many rules about the way you have to behave and what you can and can't bring and you are reduced to like a mere kind of number or cattle being herded onto you know, whatever it is, and that brings me such huge anxiety for however long it can go.

You Know, It's funny because the thing I'm mostly unnerved about are the crazy passengers. And now there's this like weird entitlement where like if you're in first class per se and someone is all the way in the back, they quickly shove their bag like over your seat, and I'm like, that's not your section, Like take.

Your bag back to where your seat is.

Like I'm not superior, but I've got a bag too, Believe me, I've got baggage. But but then also I always suss out immediately if I'm alone, I suss out people like look at people's faces, and I'll just look at all and I'll be like, Okay, if I were stranded with these people, where's the energy coming from the person that I'm going to want to partner up with and be friends? And so I'll kick someone with kind eyes or watch the way they talk to the flight attendant, and then I'll be like, Okay, I'm going to connect with that person, like I'm going to have a real communication with that person somehow, if God forbid, we happened in the hospital. I was in the hospital for a month and I broke my femur a couple of years ago.

And no, you are a number. You're a number.

It's every fifteen minutes, and they're understaffed and they're exhausted. It's nothing to do with them. And I thought to myself, if this is it for me and my family can't visit me.

It was COVID.

I was all by myself, and I thought, Okay, what are you going to do about it?

How are you going to make this human?

So I started asking the different nurses, men and women that came in. I would file their name in my brain in a picture, and I would ask them something about them, and then oh, you'd hear, oh, my nephew had a birthday party virtually, and oh my sisters said a baby. And then the next time i'd see them, I'd say, hey, how was the virtual birthday?

You know, was he happy? Did he have fun?

Or how's your sister doing with the baby. And the minute you ask them a personal question, you all of a sudden become personal to them.

And it's weird, how.

My experience went from like real depression and fear to at least human.

God, this is an amazing story. That's a fabulous thing for the listeners to here. You take this thing and make it personal, could I tell you? Like when I'm on a plane, like the other day, we were flying back from Chicago. Oh God, oh hair airport. Is there anything worse? And I love Chicago so much? And of course we get on the plane, everything's going off on time, and then they're like, oh, we just have a little tiny thing with the smoke detector right twenty minutes later, forty minutes later, an hour later, they go, Okay, everybody off the fucking plane. We're gonna have to And it's like, what So I'm sitting in the lounge and there's this really cute guy, okay, and like that's what I do. Like I go, m you know, I'm about to kill myself, you know, trying to control my breathing, and when I noticed somebody cute and that's what ends up saving me. How crazy and sick is that?

Well, you know what you do what you gotta do.

Because God, exactly, I.

Didn't say one of the people I'd picked to be stranded with wasn't a hot guy. I mean, it doesn't have to be a cute old lady. It can be a hot guy. I told this through the other day though. There was a woman across the way and I was sitting with someone. I don't know where I was going, and the woman takes her camera and she starts taking pictures of me from across the way. So normally I would just lean back and be like, ignore, get earphones on, don't you know whatever. No, a couple of kills in. I have to say, excuse me, excuse me, I said, you know what the crazy thing is?

I said, if you had just asked, I would have.

Said yes, I said, but the fact that you think I can't see you, oh, is is what unnerves me. And I can't explain it. So I just have to say that to you. Well, the minute I say it, I feel bad. The minute I say it, I'm like, oh my god, Oh my god. And she's like, no, we know it. We just didn't want to bother you, and I wanted to go like really, well, I would have been easier, but they're afraid of getting turned down, right, So then I'm like, now I feel guilty. The whole time, right, So now I go up and I go to the bathroom and I'm like, of course, do you want to meet in the galleon? We could just take a quick selfie together.

Do you want to do that? And she goes no.

I was like, so you're sure, because I mean, I really don't mind I'm doing with you, and she's like no, no, no, no, no, that's okay, that's okay.

There's just totally embarrassed. I can't let it go. I cannot let it go.

And of course.

I'm desperate for her to take a picture with me. And then finally everybody's getting up to get off the plane. I'm like, why don't we just meet on the runway thing on? And she goes no, no, no, I'm begging her to take a picture with me.

Wow, It's like, you can't win. What is wrong with you?

But I felt so proud of myself for standing up for myself in a nice way.

But then it, yeah, backfire, absolutely backfire.

I'll tell you what. From now on, the answer is just no. You don't have to say hey, look if you ask it, if you just go like can I take a picture? No, because if you give them backstory, just like it's worse. It just you get yourself deeper and deeper into it. Is everybody reading Barbara this book Barbara streis, Oh my god, Right, does anybody know where they are in the It's so long, it's just thousands and thousands of pages.

Right, I don't know where I am in this book. But I love Barbara. I love talking about Barbara.

But anyway, the reason I bring up Barbara is because I can remember like reams of Noel Coward and reams of Colporter, but not when I write the lyrics.

And I used to feel guilty about reading the lyrics. But then I went to see Barbara. It was the Barkley Center, and she did like twenty five songs and.

Like so much Potter.

Frankly, it was a little long, you know, like the book.

Editing is not Barbara's strong suit.

She was there all night and I thought to myself, you see, that's why she makes the big books, because there's no music stand.

She's not reading anything, right, And then my husband, Arnold, who's gay, right, he nudges me and he points to.

The back of the room. Every word is projected from missus Kusa. If you look that.

Way, projection she looks up all right, projection. I'm not kidding everywhere in the room. You'd think she'd learn the words to people by now. Right, And now back to my interview with Brookshields, Darling, I have to tell you, like, when you started talking about birthdays earlier, I started to think about, like not just the anxiety that I have her on my birthdays, but the anxieties that I have around holidays in general. Because here's the thing. I hate the summer months. So like Onmurial Day, you know, I start going, Okay, how many days to Labor Day till I can actually you know, rite. But then on Labor Day, I go, uh oh, Now it's fall, and soon it's going to be Halloween, and then it's going to be thanks and then before you know it, it's going to be Christmas, right, and you're going to be freaking out that spring is nigh, you know what I mean. So do you ever feel any kind of crazy crazy and the inner recesses of your brain?

Do you ever think of like the passage of time or something.

I'm always keeping that at bay, like always, especially because now I feel like I'm really starting to live my own life. That now I'm thinking, oh my god, what do I've left? How much time do I have left?

I what can I do? I don't want to miss anything about my kids.

I'm like, maybe guys should get married now and just have babies now, and then I will live at extreme that go, mom, that's weird. I'm like, go to college, A'll raise the baby. I'm you know, obviously don't mean that, but there's something something about it.

So I did this when I was on Broadway.

Like the last three shows I did, I had worked myself up into such a frenzy. My superstition was insane. I have to do this and line it up this, and I was getting like completely OCD, and I, okay, you cannot live like this. The next show I did, I purposely changed the routine every day and I purposely didn't do things, and the world didn't fall apart and I didn't fuck up on stage.

So it's like, if I'm not.

God, you're smart.

But if I'm not careful, I'm a Gemini. I can wind myself up into such a frenzy that if I you know, it's why I don't smoke pot, because if I have a moment, I try to win over pot.

I try. I try to beat it.

You try.

I try to win.

Right and somehow Tequila, I don't know what it is like you're right about to.

Kids, it's the only non it's the only non depressive because I guess because it's pure agave.

I don't really know, but maybe me.

Maybe because there's no sugar, it's ol Agave's God. I love how we're talking about.

It. Is that we're chemists or something. Yeah, Like, I know, Darling.

Can we talk about the holidays for just a second longer? I want to know where you stand on cards. Do you say, do you make cards? Do you like cards?

Okay, there's a part of me that likes to see my friend's families, you know, in a Christmas card. But then I'm like, oh, I got so many of the friends families. Then you start getting friends people that you don't even remember their children, and then you're like, oh God, and then I'm thinking of paper and trees and the environment, and then I got all nutty, and then you know, I don't send cards. I have cards with presents that I give that I buy and wrap and give. I used to, I mean, the list of gifts that I gave people everybody's assistant, everybody's second assistant, every person I worked with, every agent and lawyer and Dana, oh god. And I don't do that anymore. We now get cards from JDRF, which is juvenile diabetes. My older daughter was diagnosed when she was fourteen, and you know, she gives herself insulin multiple times a day, and it really changed her life. And she wouldn't let me ever talk about it. And now I can finally talk about it because she's twenty. And now I just I do that thing where I legitimately take all of whatever it was that I wull am spending that year, and I.

Give it to Oh, that's so great, and it just and then.

People appreciate it. They know it's something it's not a waste, it's not something they're not going to use. It's not a regift. It's you know, there's a simplicity to it.

And that's a lot of time.

That's in and of itself, a pretty big endeavor. But I feel good about it on multiple levels. But I don't like cards.

I don't get cards.

It makes you feel good when you do something like that, you know, speaking of regifting, let's segue into the Carlisle, and to you as a performer, because you know, I'm about to do a couple of nights at the Carlisle and.

I love how you can just do it, like to me, well, it was such a endeavor.

Well, I oh, it's not that I can just do it.

It's that I've been working with these people for like, you know, thirty years, and we've been doing gigs, and we've been doing nightclub gigs, and we've been doing shows in theaters, you know, everywhere, and it's just you know, we're putting this show together the holidays, and we're going to be regifting because I do that on stage.

I regift.

This is just some stuff that I've collected over the years and I love doing this.

Here's the thing. You get stuff, right. You have to take a bag when you leave an event, right, and you know.

Those people who take like six bags and you're like, what the fuck are you going to do with all of that expired moisturized okay, and they're putting it all up in their gentle No, no, no, it's junk.

It's junk, okay, junk, No, it's not.

Actually, there are some.

Quite cute things.

Does anybody does anybody use DVDs anymore?

You want a DVD, I'm just gonna leave it.

Little miss Sunshine, Wait a minute.

Do you okay?

Well, maybe pass it over to that lady. Please give it to her.

Wait a minute, who wants some leg warm?

Leg warm?

These could be very like with the right. Look, here's something. It's probably not very fresh.

It's a Hilton chocolate and how old you say? But it consider on a shelf. It's a very good looking.

It's a fun piece.

I mean your I'm gonna leave it. Just take everything I know except oh cute?

What about a little eyeglass case from zeitelnd Optics Zitland Optics, which is no longer in business, Darling, This could fetch.

A good like two dollars and fifty cents on ebed. You're raising your head.

Oh I'm going yeah, No, no, you're getting it raise.

Too late.

You're getting are so you know what, Happy holidays, Happy damn holidays.

So let's talk about you at the Carlisle because i'd made address for you. That was so beautiful. Well that's right, but wait a second. So I came to see the show. It was so good, right, And here's the thing, about your show. I felt like it was more about like a workshop or something like you were a good time. No, it's a really good I felt like something that should be in a theater, you know, like it was great in the club. And by the way, when I did my one person show off Broadway in two thousand, it started with me doing a lot of performing in clubs and gathering stuff, gathering material.

Right, so tell me about the show. How did it come about?

Well, so Tommy Toons manager was in charge of booking the first half of the season or something like that. I didn't know it was temporary that he was taking his job. I think it's temporary. But anyway, so he called me and said I talked to Tommy. Tommy said, you have to do a show, and I said, oh god, no, that's not what I do. I did it it finds and I was so nervous, and so, you know, I don't get up and sing songs like the people I always compare myself to, which is ridiculous, like it'll.

Be like Chenna with and you know, Nick Mey or something like that, and you're like, what's wrong with you?

You know? So you set yourself up like that emotionally, but he said, I've seen you on broad I've seen you in Wonderful Town, I've seen you in everything you've done. You not only can handle it, this is something that you can do when you will be happy. And now he hardly knows me. So I said, yeah, I need to think about it. And then I thought, okay, it happened to have been right before the strike. But I thought to myself going forward in my career, what don't I have in my back pocket in some way of performing? Because I speak all over the country and it's always about depression, and it's always about life, and it's always for mental health, and it's beautiful, but by the same token, And wouldn't it be great if I had something else that satisfied me as a performer that I then could do and have it not be if I don't get a movie, or if I don't get that series, or if that's not happening. What's a way that I can stay creative? And so I said, Okay, I'm going to look at this show like a tryout, and I'm going to pretend I want to do it like on Broadway one day. And so we looked at it as less of a cabaret because truth be told, yes I can sing, but you want to hear me tell stories and original songs and songs.

That are not familiar.

Otherwise you get somebody like Sutton Foster to belt it out beautifully and it's fabulous and you're like, oh my god.

Vocally, that was amazing. That's not what I do. But I it was really hard for.

Me to find a place of comfort, and I had to cancel Indianapolis. I had two shows in Indianapolis, but prior to the Carlisle, to try these things out in front of an audience, that's when I had a seizure and I had to cancel Indianapolis. And I now have to remake up Indianapolis, and I've reworked the show because I've said, when I get to this song, it makes me panic. I've got to pick a different song.

You got to pick a different so they have to be comfortable. Yeah, okay, one go on.

No, Just that I realize if I'm going to do this again, I have to be able to do it sick. I have to be able to do it yes and not panic and say, oh my god, they think I suck because I don't sound like so and so and get that off my mind?

Can I tell you something?

A few times in those fittings when you walked in, I was like, she's going to learn such a lesson about being in a room and sitting on an audience's lap, Like that is what you're doing as a cabaret performer. You're sitting on their fucking laps and you're going, Hi, cutie, how are you tonight? You know, it's like that's what you're doing, and then you know it graduates to bigger and bigger and bigger rooms when you're just in a room with an audience, but that is what you are doing. You are delighting them. It's not like somebody's writing something for you and you're performing that that material.

And what I saw you do in that room was so amazing.

And I don't know if you were like faking it till you made it or something, or if you were actually there, because it was pretty early on in the run, but you seem to be like sitting in it and letting them like really feel you and touch you, and you made them laugh. You're hysterical, okay, And you're a beautiful, beautiful musician, a really beautiful musician. I mean that, and your ensemble is great, and the material was great. Did you have any fun?

I started to after the first week, right, I then started to because I didn't want to miss out on the experience. But what happened to me, which I don't know if I mentioned this to you, But so I am fine on Broadway.

Give me a thousand seat house.

You I mean, I'm fine, Oh my god, but take.

A wig off me. Have me be just.

I realize I don't thrive and crave attention like that. Like I know some performers that just oh, they come alive when they get out there. And it took a lot for me. And I'm not like, oh, thou dost protest too much? You know, you know you really have an ego.

That's what this is.

Like, Oh, you're just Brooke.

How can you allow Brook to be not a fake character? Because it's not a fake.

It's a fake. It's totally me. But how do I not feel I don't know.

I just I'm like, I can't wait to get out there and get applause. I almost want to tell them they don't have to applaud it. Okay, it's okay, it's okay, I don't need apply like it's such a It's a weird psychological thing that started when I was a little girl, I'm sure, with my mother. And whenever I started getting a little nutty in my head, like I think I saw somebody, and there wouldn't even be them, they would morph into some showrunner director that I wanted to impress. All of a sudden, i'd go up on my lyrics or something. I just stayed as much in the song as I possibly could, and that's when I started to say, oh, okay. And then when I was able to be self deprecating, and it came out of real funny moments, like the time I howked up something and I was like, oh, eBay, now you can't really repeat it. I tried to repeat it. It didn't really land the same way the next night.

But oh god, that is funny. You really are all that darling. You really are such a funny woman. It's the best. I love it. But here's the thing.

You were in Chicago the show. You were in a million shows. But I was in Chicago last year exactly this time, and you know, it was my first Broadway show. I had never been on Broadway, before I'd been like off Broadway shows, I did sell and I have to tell you, Darling, it was the opposite, like we have opposite realities in that, you know, I suffer from stage frighten no matter what, like when I'm at the Carlisle that when I'm at the Cabaret in Indianapolis or wherever it is, any stage, any theater, you know, I get very very scared, very very very scared. But there was something so ominous about being in a Broadway show for me, just the word Broadway, you know.

Like I don't know what it was. You were great, and you know, I tried to be great.

I worked really, really hard, and I worked too hard, I think. And when I saw your show at the Carlisle, I thought, wow, she gave us something that we weren't expecting, which was this incredible not just appearance, but you really like wrote something.

Did you write that? Who did you write that?

I wrote that with Nate Patton, who was director. I said to my musical director, I was like, who do you think gets our sensibility? Like because he and I, my pianos, my MD, he and I have this a very similar sense of humor. And so I then we need to have somebody that has our sense of humor because it can't be in that traditional world and we have to tell real stories. And then, by the grace of God, I mean, or grace of something, Matt Scalar and Amanda Green right heard about it. She was aware of me and seeing me in Wonderful Town, so she knew what my type of potter was. And they said, we would love to write an original song for your show. And that's where that so good. Yeah, it's weird. Fame is weird. And that's where because I said, you know, I have to make fun of myself in a way that allows people to go, oh my god, that's pretty fucked up.

But it's funny, you know.

I have to say watching it because I watched Pretty Baby. I watched the documentary really the first week it was out, I was on it, you know, And while I was watching the show at the Carlisle that that was called previously owned by by Brookshields, Yeah exactly.

And when I was watching that, I thought, these.

Are the hilarious outtakes from the documentary, Like these are the moments in her life who were actually inside her brain and we are going, oh, I guess she did think it was pretty weird whatever it was with Elizabeth Taylor or Michael Jackson or whatever those experiences were that you recounted, you know, and that's what made me think it would be such a good Broadway or off Broadway whatever. It is like a show where if you wrote it, you know, I mean, it's there, the show is there, thank you. So tell me about how you learned how to perform on stage.

First of all, where did you learn to sing?

Well?

What's crazy about that is? I mean I auditioned form my first Broadway show. I auditioned for Tommy Toon and Annie Ranking, and I was supposed to just be dancing bought with the dance Captain and in walks.

Annie.

Well, I went the bathroom, I threw up, I came back and I thought, okay, this is it.

You've either got the guts or you don't, and this is a dream come true.

And she ended up doing the Hot Honey, the d choreography with me will.

No, no, no, Yeah, that's great. It's burned in our memories.

Try to think about looking in a huge mirror and seeing her, her right behind you, trying to and matching the hands. But not wanting to think about it too much. And you know, I was like, so that was my first foray. And when I went into Grease, actually I just started watching the best person in each category, the best dancer, the best singer, the person whose voice I could could identify with. I took lessons and lessons and lessons and lessons, but seven Broadway shows later, I never knew what my own sound was. And I thought, you know what, if I do this show, I'm not going to sing Broadway tunes that I've had to just learn vocally, where to put them, how to do it. There's nothing natural that comes out in my voice. I can technically do those things, but it's not mine. And I said, I've got to pick songs. At least seventy five percent of the songs have to be something that I would sing alone and feel good about. And the less recognizable they are, the better, because you're not going to compare me to somebody else because you've imprinted on how you want that song to sound. So I'm constantly taking singing lessons and vocally.

That's amazing, That's that's so fabulous to know. Does that ease your stage fright? Like when you know, Okay, look, I've warmed up. I probably can get through blah blah blah blah.

Does it ease you, Yeah, it eases me because I know that I've at least put myself in a position to be the best that I can be at the moment, because if I didn't, I would beat myself up because something would go wrong, and then I would say, well, it's because you didn't warm up, or you drunk to michequilla last night, or you didn't get enough sleep or ba, and I would make myself crazy. So I put myself at least in that position. The thing that I'm hoping still is we switched out a Dolly Parton's song, we put into other songs basically, and we cut some stuff, and I'm really happy because what we're put in is when I hear my voice in it, well not even just hear it, when I feel it. It is that is where my voice sits, and it is a much raspier, deeper kind of twangy at times. It's where I'm the most comfortable, and I've just never sung there, you know. So I'm constantly trying to find the only way I can make this a bigger show is if I really hook into what my own sound is.

M right.

Was there a failure you had on stage? Was there something funny that happened to you on stage that you learned from.

One of my little stickies fell out of my dress onto the table in front of me, and I.

Amplification. Amplification covers a right then.

So it was like I thought on my feet, I was like, do you have a sharpie, I'll sign it.

So you use these things.

I used those things. I mean, you know, to me in a very weird way, Opening night was a failure.

And I know that's almost insulting to me.

It always is.

People like it.

It's just it's never a good show.

I could not get out of my way. And I know I sound better, and.

I know I know if I were to see it, I probably wouldn't think it was as bad. But I looked out and it was as if I was having hallucinations that what famous people were out there, people that weren't even there. And I talked myself into why I wasn't supposed to be there, how I suck and it took me like I had to pull myself, and at one point I looked back my musical director, and he bore his eyes into me, like, get your fucking shit together. You know you are better than this, and you are getting in your way and your throat is closing because you're so nervous, right, And he was like, I was like, and then I just started breathing. I took a little time, and I tried to re regroup and resettle. But you know, everything is about failing in one way or another, because I don't want to let myself do that to myself anymore. So I now need to find ways to not let myself sabotage myself.

Well, I mean a few things, Darling, just so you know, Okay, I'm not sure what went on with your opening night, but my opening nights are never so good, you know. And then I like to tape one of the shows just so I know what happened in the room, so I actually have jokes and blah blah, and I write all this new material for every single time I appear at the Carlisle's like my residence of the carl And then I take it on the road and I do shows across the country with the same material in the same songs, and we rehearsed like for months and months with the music and everything, and then opening night comes and the audience is just they're more reserved on opening night. They just are at least in that room. And that was the night they had to tape. It's like, well, it's going to be shitty, but at least we'll know what material right. And then after opening night, like everyone who works for you, who you trust, who would usually say to you, like, hey, we're in trouble, you know, they would say to me, you know what, it was pretty good, Like I don't know what you you're feeling and you're thinking, and you're flying outside of yourself and looking at yourself in such a horrifying, critical, horrible way.

You know.

But I wish I could have taped your opening night because you would have seen, Hey, you know what, even my feeling that it wasn't so good, it was a pretty damn good show. The audience got their moneys. No, I mean, you would know that if I showed you right, because you're a seasoned professional and I know that you're overly, overly critical by the way you were talking earlier about the work ethic, but also our generation or whatever, within ten years or whatever, we were taught to like really overly overly criticize ourselves.

Well, we're also.

Taught to overly prepare, you know, and I think that that's the really important thing. I mean, my opening night was sponsored by this wonderful wine company, burdenhand Out of Australia, but.

They took up the whole room.

So what happened was it was technically the friendliest room you could imagine, right, and which.

Made it even worse because.

I like, they know me a certain way, they know that I have the talent, right, so their expectation is so high. I'm like, I'd rather have low expectation.

And then rise the puppet. It's so sick. I'm not saying it's sounds great.

Crazy, I know, I understand, though, I understand how we just get in our own ways.

And then there were movie stars in the in the audience, there were movie stars, and I was like, oh god, movie stars and some one coming in Laura turn and you know, you know, it was just such a funny thing, and I.

Was like, you deserve to be here, You deserve to be here. Yes, there are movies stars.

And then I looked over it Naomi Watson, she was just like beaming, like she was just so sweet and I was just like, oh my god, I think you're so talented.

In my mind, I'm like, it was just too much.

And she loves you, Naomi Watts.

I mean, she was there because she wanted to see you and because she loves you. You know, she wasn't there to like automatically hate everything about you through it, you know, Yeah, I know.

And the mistake that we made too is we did NAPA one night, which I think I told you about, and I said to you, I was like, it's never going to be as bad as this, not because the crowd wasn't great and it was beautiful, it was outdoors, and I don't know what you're thinking. I couldn't hear myself, I couldn't hear the audience. I couldn't hear one laugh, They couldn't hear each other, And I was like, what this is death?

What am I doing?

Wow, Darling.

One other thing I do on this podcast I talk about obituaries because I'm kind of obsessed with them. Is there an obituary that you would like in this world?

Like? Is there a headline?

Is there some kind of description of you and what you were supposed to be about in your life.

What do you think it would say? What would you like it to.

Say, Well, you know, career wise, I think it would be she never gave up. You know, longevity is a word that I love. But I fought so hard to have healthy relationships and be the kind of mother that you know, I know we fail as mothers too, but there is something about who I am with a being a mom that is so deeply who I am because I've been around for so long. I mean, we've been around, right, and and I don't ever give up. And I think that watching the documentary, what it gave to me in a different way, and that would be on my you know, headstone.

She had talent, but weary here it is, and she had talent because.

That's been what's kept me alive over the years if you really think about it. But growing up, I just had to be pretty and behave and no one thought to nurture talent. And it was as if I in spite of all of that, I forged and discovered talent and and found I was funny, and found I could dance, and found I could be on Broadway and you know, sing and dance and act well enough and found where my strengths were. I mean, listen, Louis Mau wasn't going to cast a kid we didn't see had some kind of talent. That's too risky, you know. But I never owned that because I was told it, and I would say I need better material when I got older, and they'd say, no, no, we have you.

Wow, Jesus man.

And you were the one to nurture that on yourself. You recognized it and you did.

It, girl, You did it. That's what's so great.

Thank you. I'm still doing it all right.

So what do you want to promote on this podcast? Is to something?

Well, now I can actually, which is the craziest thing. I did a Netflix movie with Benjamin Bratt and it's called Mother of the Bride and we shot it in pouquette.

For Benjamin Brat, Oh Darling, give him my phone.

Please listen if you're ever in an airport, Beline belind for that.

And his wife is so beautiful. It's not there.

It's just not like I have to google it the minute I get off. You have to.

It's like she defies.

It's so sweet and so funny, and I was bouncing around you know, like a Golden Retriever puppy, and she's just so reserved and beautiful and lovely, and she was like, wow, you're you're fun You're funny, and I was like, you know, but anyway, so Netflix, I guess.

And when does it drop? What does it drop?

I don't know now because I just I have to do a dr this week.

Got it so soon soon we're looking for it probably.

I don't know how these things. It's not a Christmas movie, so I don't know. I don't know how we're doing anything anymore. You know, I just now know I can talk about it.

I love it.

I'm writing a book.

I look for it. What is it? A book about you?

It's not autobiographical in its entirety, but it is about this era in a woman's life. And I started this company and it's it's for women over forty who you know, it's a very beautiful, fraught, fabulous free time that there's so much ahead of us, but we're we're overlooked once we hit forty.

And it's so funny how you have to keep saying that, you know, It's like you don't have to say that when you're twenty that it's a beautiful fraud.

Fuh bah.

You don't have to say any of that. Just people assume that that's what it is. But you do have to say that, especially as a woman, you know. But that's a whole other podcast. Yeah, that's a whole other podcast.

You have to say.

Maybe we'll do it on your podcast. We're going to do your podcast perfect. Well.

I adore you, Brooke, You're the greatest. I mean it, it was a great thank you for sache.

I love talking to you and thank you for just being so positive and fun.

And I don't know I like you as my.

Friend, no, you no, you know, you know you.

Hey, listen, have a fabulous holiday and try not to destroy your psyche.

You too, darling, hang in there, hang in there. I love you. I love you too soon soon.

Brook Shields and I have so much in common, right, I mean, she started in the fashion business. I started in the fashion business. You know, she was modeling when she was really young. But also we're both trying to kind of live in show business in a happy kind of way. And in her case, you know, she'd been a big, big movie star forever, you know, and since she's a baby, since she's twelve years old or something, and then you know she's a big Broadway star as well. She's been in something like seven or eight huge Broadway productions. And what I loved so much about talking to brook Shields is that you know, she goes through exactly the same things as I go through before I appear in front of an audience. You know, she was talking about this almost debilitating self criticism and stage fright that she feels in her life, and I sort of can't believe it, only because I think about her in ways the way I think about say Elizabeth Taylor, who was discovered in her early early years as someone who was ravishingly beautiful and intensely intensely photogenic, right like you couldn't take a bad picture of Brookshields, And so I just think, someone that beautiful, how could they not be incredibly incredibly confident. And she's been through so much incredible stuff and adversity and huge triumphs, and she still is grappling with this nearly debilitating stage fright and self doubt. And I find that to be so humanizing.

That was what I took away from this whole thing.

I don't know why it filled me with confidence myself, and it filled me with an even greater love for this person who I already love. Anyway, thank you so much for listening. It truly means the world to me. And just as a little thank you, I hope you enjoy this holiday gift I'm sending out to you Holidays.

Some words poetic aren't sympathetic. Too colder and wintry climbs. We need a number of better rhymes about that chimes for festive times.

When it's on.

Order to change cold porter, I will cautiously raise the bar.

I've cast dis versions.

And wrote some versions of words.

That should show you how great you are. You're the top. You're an air mail letter. You're the top. You're an ugly sweater. You're the twinkling nights on the wintry nights of your You're alit skyscraper. You're wrapping paper a liquor store. Hello, You're a dream. You're a healthy pap smear. You're the team. You are Santa's reindeer. I'm a boring tome, an inmate poem.

A flop, but if baby on the.

Mottom, You're the top, You're the top. You're a Glasston pheasant. You're the top.

You're a New Year's.

Present of coyotes called You're the freshly fallen snow.

You're a lean beef jerky, a vegan turkey.

Your missiletoe a display.

Done in bright red lacquer.

You're ballet. You're that huge nutcracker, an.

Easter hair to early there top.

But if Baby on the bottom, you're the top taken.

Ticket, You're the top.

You're in organ player. You're the top.

You're the Whoville mayor.

You're the breeding card or the very hard to please. You're a tame of wacamot, a green bean casserole. You're Christmas trees. You're the blush from the store of Sephora. You're the flush from a gold Manora. I'm a backfat roll, a hateful troll, a flap. But if Baby, I'm the bottom, you're the top.

You're the top. You're the Barbie remake. You're the top.

You're a nutty fruitcake.

You're a fireplace screen on my TV screen in bed. You are Santa's.

Fluffer, a stocking suffer, your gingerbread, you.

Know what I mean. You are screwed in his disenchantments.

You are huge, baby, you're on the Ten Commandments of the.

Shoes that pin come a terrible cringe of flop. What if Babyhay the bad.

Darlings.

If you enjoyed this episode, do me a favor and tell someone, Tell a friend, tell your mother, tell your cousin, tell everyone you know.

Okay, and be sure to rate the show. I love rating stuff.

Go on and rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts so more people can hear about it. It makes such a gigantic difference and like it takes a second, So go on and do it. And if you want more fun content videos and posts of all kinds, follow the show on Instagram and TikTok at Hello Isaac podcast And by the way, check me out on Instagram and TikTok at. I Am Isaac Msrahi. This is Isaac Misrahi. Thank you, I love you and I never thought I'd say this, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac is produced by Imagine Audio, Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by Me Isaac Msrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin Gelfenbein. The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. It is executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Carara Welker, and Nathan Klokey at Imagine, Audio production management from Katie Hodges, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by Ben Wilson. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katanak and I AM Entertainment

Yeah,

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Hello Isaac with Isaac Mizrahi

Isaac Mizrahi is an expert -  at almost everything! He’s an iconic fashion designer, actor, singer,  
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